The present invention relates to semiconductor device packages and more particularly to co-packages.
Half-bridge circuits are well known in the art of power supplies. Referring to FIG. 1, a half-bridge includes two power semiconductor die connected in series. For example, a typical half bridges includes a first power MOSFET 46 (typically referred to as the high side switch or high side) having a drain side thereof electrically connectable to the bus, and the source side thereof electrically connected to the drain side of second power MOSFET 48 (typically referred to as the low side switch or the low side). The source side of second power MOSFET 48 is electrically connectable to the ground. The output 50 of the half-bridge is the point of connection of first semiconductor die 46 and second semiconductor die 48. It should be noted that half-bridge circuits are not restricted to power MOSFETs, but other power switching devices such as IGBTs, SCRs, III-nitride based power devices, or non-switching devices such as diodes can be used for forming a half-bridge.
Referring next to FIG. 2A–2B, a typical vertical conduction power MOSFET 52 includes source electrode 54 and gate electrode 56 on one side thereof, and a drain electrode 58 on an opposing surface thereof.
In a typical power semiconductor package, such as a TO-220 type package, a single power MOSFET is electrically, and mechanically mounted at the drain side thereof on a die pad by a layer of solder or the like, has its source and gate electrodes electrically connected by wirebonds or the like to external leads, and overmolded with a mold compound. Thus, to form a half-bridge using a prior art power semiconductor package at least two packages must be used. Thus, a prior art package consumes more footprint on a circuit board and would naturally exhibit higher resistance, inductance, etc. due to the extra packaging elements.